Domains of perfectionism: Prevalence and relationships with perfectionism, gender, age, and satisfaction with life

• Published in: Personality and individual differences 2009-03, Vol.46 (4), p.530-535
• Main Authors: Stoeber, Joachim, Stoeber, Franziska S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age; Biological and medical sciences; Bodily hygiene; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gender; Hygiene; Job performance; Life satisfaction; Perfectionism; Personality traits; Personality. Affectivity; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Satisfaction with life, work; Sports; Studies
• ISSN: 0191-8869; 1873-3549
• DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2008.12.006

Perfectionists have been described as people who want to be perfect in all domains of their lives. Few studies to date, however, have investigated what domains people are perfectionistic in. Using two samples (109 university students, 289 Internet users), the present study investigated how being perfectionistic in 22 domains of life was related to perfectionism, age, gender, and satisfaction with life. Across samples, work and studies were the domains that most participants reported being perfectionistic in, followed by bodily hygiene, spelling, and presentation of documents. Whereas age, gender, and satisfaction with life showed significant relationships with selected domains of life, perfectionism showed significant positive correlations with the overall score (number of domains affected by perfectionism) and with being perfectionistic in individual domains. Further analyses showed that self-oriented perfectionism, rather than socially prescribed perfectionism, was responsible for these correlations. The findings indicate that, in most domains, being perfectionistic is internally motivated and not externally motivated. Moreover, they show that, while some perfectionists may be perfectionistic across domains, most perfectionists are perfectionistic only in selected domains.